“Any word on the peace talks, ma’am?” he asked. It wasn’t proper for a junior officer to speak to an admiral without being invited to, but with as much trouble as he was in he figured that was the least of his worries
“I understand the uBakai and uKa-Maat are balking at the demand for reparations. They don’t want to rebuild our orbital spacedocks or repair the Quito Needle, which may derail everything before it’s properly started. I suppose we’ll see what happens next.”
If the admiral had an opinion on that, Sam couldn’t make it out. He wasn’t sure what he thought, either. Yes, end this absurd, pointless, nightmarishly dangerous war as soon as possible. On the other hand, if people could just take a swing at Earth, kill thousands of people, screw up its spacefaring infrastructure for maybe a decade, and then step back and say, “Sorry, we quit,” with no price to pay, what was to keep the next guy from trying the same thing?
“I suppose you are aware Commander Boynton recommended you be court martialed?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. I found out when I was placed under arrest. Under the circumstances I don’t see that you have many options.”
“Humm,” she said, and studied the smart surface of her desk, spending a moment arranging display windows on it. “Well, that’s up to me, of course, as I would be the convening authority for such a court. Your Vice Admiral Stevens is due to arrive and take overall command within two weeks, but I see no need to put off resolving this.
“We have recordings of your address to your officers and senior chiefs on 8 January concerning Admiral Goldjune’s sealed orders to the task force. Commander Boynton charges those remarks constitute insubordination, and furthermore undermined the authority of superiors in your chain of command.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Crutchley frowned and glanced back down at the document on her desk but Sam had the feeling she wasn’t really reading it, or at least not for the first time. The admiral raised her face, looked him in the eye.
“You were only to serve as acting captain until relieved, isn’t that so?”
“Yes, ma’am, but my scheduled relieving officer was killed in the First Battle of K’tok.”
“Yes, that would be this Lieutenant Commander Barger. And they didn’t replace him because the task force was short of line officers. Also, you appear to have performed well in that action.”
She slid another display document from the side of her desk to the center.
“Humm,” she said, which Sam began to suspect was her favorite expression. “I have a recommendation for a commendation for you here, from Commander Atwater-Jones, the former task force N-2.”
“Former, ma’am?”
Crutchley looked up. “Yes. The task force has of course been disbanded and replaced by the combined fleet, and I have my own smart boss. I’m used to working with him, but Aye-Jay has agreed to stay on as deputy N-2 once she’s had a bit of convalescent leave. Probably all academic, as I imagine your Admiral Stevens will have his own staff.”
Cassandra’s nickname was Aye-Jay?
“Convalescent leave? Was she injured, ma’am?”
“Oh, nothing serious, a bit of hypothermia and some frostbite on her feet. Besides, having a ship blown out from under you always rates a spell of shore leave. You are . . . acquainted with her?”
She asked this question with her head cocked slightly to the side.
“Only in an official capacity, ma’am. We have holoconferenced a few times, half dozen. Aside from that we’ve never met.”
Crutchley nodded and settled back in her chair. “She’s an interesting officer, if rather unconventional. I suspect she would be a full captain by now but she doesn’t seem to know when to keep her mouth closed.”
“Oh, I can attest to that, ma’am,” Sam said, but he regretted it as soon as he said it. Yes, there were times he wished she’d kept silent, that last time in particular. Still, everything she’d said had been true, hadn’t it?
“She was sent out here as a form of Coventry, you know,” Crutchley continued. “Exile, I suppose you would say. She needed one really brilliant intelligence coup to get back in good odor with the CDI—that’s Chief of Defense Intelligence.”
Crutchley paused and looked with particular intensity at Sam as she continued.
“Ironic how close she came.”
“Close?” Sam said. “What would you call figuring out the jump drive scrambler and the Varoki plot behind this war?”
Crutchley leaned forward and squinted at Sam as if trying to tell if he were being disingenuous. “Perhaps I should read you the pertinent passage of her recommendation. I quote:
“Captain Bitka organized the working group which discovered the error in our drive specification data base and correctly identified AZ Kagataan as the manufacturer of the drives on both USS Theodore Roosevelt and HMS Furious. Further, drawing upon his experience in his civilian occupation, he identified the manufacturer’s so-called “cheat code” as the likely avenue for remote activation and reprogramming of the jump drives by ECM missile. While serving as acting N-2 of Task Group 1.2, his interrogation of the captured uKa-Maat Captain Lorppo gave us our first genuine insight into the nature of the forces arrayed against us.”
Crutchley looked up from her desk. “In other words, Captain Bitka, you are solely responsible for uncovering every important aspect of these intelligence coups, and before your sense of modesty prompts you to say anything, let me point out that to deny any detail of this would be to charge a serving officer of the Royal Navy with willfully falsifying an official report.”
Sam had been about to do just that, but he shut his mouth. She had been in trouble with her bosses, which explained why she’d always told him he had a direct line to her for intelligence matters. She must have decided he was a source worth cultivating, someone who might deliver the intelligence gem she needed. In a sense, he had.
But it wasn’t his working group, it was Moe Rice who had figured out the truth about Bully. Cassandra had followed up with Furious. Yes, he’d come up with the cheat code idea, but all he’d done with Captain Lorppo was show up. Lorppo had been ready to spill his guts as soon as his ship was disabled. Cassandra had won the lottery that would take her back home in triumph, and then she’d thrown her winning ticket away. Why would she do that?
“Do you have anything to add to Commander Atwater-Jones’s report?”
Sam sighed. “No, ma’am. Nothing to add.”
Crutchley sat back and pulled absent-mindedly at her right earlobe.
“Of course, given the sensitive nature of this information, her report is marked Most Secret, and we could not enter it in the official record of a court martial unless it were heavily redacted, perhaps to the point of incomprehensibility. But I also have a recommendation from the late Commodore Bonaventure concerning incorporation in training circulars of what he called ‘The Bow-on Bitka Attack Profile.’ Do people really call you that?”
Sam felt his face flush.
“Some . . . Unfortunately . . . Yes, ma’am. Not my idea.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I also have a report from Brigadier General Irekanmi stating that without the confirmation that his two cruisers were not vulnerable to the jump scrambler, he could not in good conscience have ordered the attack which settled the battle in our favor. Your doing as well, I suppose, but also classified as secret.
“Well, stack the tactical innovation and your performance under fire on one side of the scale, and the unquestionably inflammatory remarks about a superior officer on the other, and I’m not sure what a court martial would say. Now, with Atwater-Jones’s unredacted recommendation and Irekanmi’s report . . . well. Nevertheless, these are serious issues raised by Commander Boynton, and they must be addressed—officially.”
“I understand, ma’am. I offer no excuse.”
Her lips pursed in irritation and for the first time she gestured impatiently, dismissively.
“No excuse! Junior officers and their
automatic replies. God, I am so heartily tired of it. Heartily tired. Why is it so important to impale yourself on these tired formulae? Just once I would like to hear, ‘Yes, mum, everything went tits up but ‘ere’s why.’ Can you not bring yourself to give me one sensible excuse?”
Sam sat quietly for several long seconds thinking about Crutchley’s question. He understood the intelligence and compassion from which it grew, but finally he shook his head.
“Sorry, ma’am, it’s hard to explain . . . no, maybe it isn’t. You see, I have an officer who turned out to be a liar and a cheat, and who abandoned his responsibility to his subordinates. If I asked him I’m sure he could give me plenty of excuses, and a few of them would actually be pretty good, but so what? What would they change?
“A couple months ago I was a different guy in a different world. But here in orbit around K’tok, when ships were coming apart around me and people I loved were dying, excuses stopped meaning anything. All my brain has room for now is solutions. If that’s not enough . . . well, I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry, ma’am.”
She shook her head and turned away, eyes thoughtful but distant. For a while she said nothing, but then spoke.
“Someone once observed that an army is as brave as its privates and as skillful as its generals.” She turned back to him. “I imagine that’s true, but you know it’s just the opposite for us. A navy is as skillful as its mariners and as brave as its admirals. Or I suppose its captains, when there are no admirals handy.
“Why did you reverse course at the final Battle of K’tok?”
“Ma’am?”
“When Brigadier General Irekanmi’s cruiser division jumped to your proximity, the uBakai fleet turned away from you and toward it. Your force had already suffered casualties and considerable damage.” She paused and glanced down at her desk for a moment, then directly back at him. “There were repairs to conduct, assistance to render to the other two surviving ships—I beg your pardon, boats—and yet you immediately ordered a course reversal to overtake and reengage the enemy.”
“Lieutenant Commander Rockaway—” Sam started but Crutchley cut him off.
“No, Captain Bitka, the logs are quite clear. You issued your order to accelerate toward the enemy prior to any communication with Lieutenant Commander Rockaway. Why did you do so?”
Sam thought back to those moments on the bridge, trying to reconstruct the waves of conflicting emotions which had washed over him, which had struggled for control of his consciousness, his will, and as he did so he felt a rising flush of anger.
“Why? I’ll tell you why, ma’am. To hit them, hit them again, and keep hitting them. All those tactical theories we studied in peacetime, all the intricate problems of long-range missile intercept solutions, it’s all bullshit. What matters is getting in and hitting them, as quickly and as hard as you can, over and over until one of you dies or he gives up.
“The cruisers came and distracted the leatherheads, so I hit them from behind. I hit them because I needed them thinking about how badly we were hurting them. I couldn’t let them have the time to think about how badly they’d hurt us. I hit them because we had them surrounded and off-balance. I hit them because that’s what we do.”
He realized he was leaning forward and almost shouting. He sat back in his chair and took a deep, unsteady breath.
“Humm,” she said and then for several long seconds she sat staring at him, unmoving, her face unreadable. Finally she spoke again.
“This may surprise you, Captain Bitka—it certainly did me, but the facts are indisputable. There are only six surviving Human captains who have commanded a vessel in combat in this war. Ranjha of Exeter and Irekanmi of Aradu fought only at the Fourth Battle of K’tok. Rockaway, Swanson, and Kropotkin of the Fifth Destroyer Division fought at the Third and Fourth Battles. You commanded Puebla at First, Second, Third and Fourth K’tok. Captain Bitka, whether due to skill or extraordinary luck—and I rather expect it is both of those—you are currently the most combat-experienced captain in any Human space navy, and by a substantial margin. So when I ask you why you conducted particular tactical maneuvers, I assure you my interest is professional.
“As to this other business, you have two options: accept summary judgment by admiral’s mast—which is to say by me—or trial by court martial. Which will it be?”
It took Sam a moment to realize what the admiral was asking. Either go before a court martial and take his chances, or put his entire future in the hands of a stranger—a Limey, at that.
“Before you decide, let me remind you that by accepting the judgment of an admiral’s mast you would waive your right to trial by court martial and to any appeal of the judgment rendered. If you would like advice of legal counsel, I have a US Navy judge advocate officer waiting in an adjoining office with whom you can speak.”
A court martial could turn . . . ugly, especially when it came time for Larry Goldjune to testify. Of course he’d known that all along, but now . . .
Sam looked at the three rows of ribbons on the admiral’s uniform. He wasn’t familiar with European decorations, or what the ribbons stood for, but he saw that two of them had battle stars—or at least on US ribbons they would be battle stars.
“Understood, ma’am. I don’t need to talk to a lawyer. I’ll take the admiral’s mast.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
22 January 2134
(three days later) (thirty-second day since entering K’tok orbit)
Sam fidgeted as he stood in the badly worn VIP lounge at T’tokl-Heem Downstation, in the heart of the administrative capital on K’tok. He and his crew, apart from a small anchor watch he had left under the command of Lieutenant Goldjune, had come down the needle the previous day to begin their “medical liberty.” They’d been in zero gee long enough they needed recovery time in plus-gee, and K’tok was the only liberty port available. A day had given him more time to regain his “dirt legs.” They were still unaccustomed to carrying his weight and he tired quickly, but his balance was coming back. He just had to be careful not to stand too quickly. Now he was back at the downstation terminal, waiting for the next passenger capsule to arrive down the needle.
Two weeks earlier the street surrounding the downstation had been swept by small arms fire, and the terminal’s interior still showed its effects: torn and oil-stained carpet, light composite sheets replacing the glass in half the exterior windows, temporary workstations standing in for the permanent stations which for some reason were still off-line. A lot had happened in the intervening time. In the face of the now-overwhelming forces in orbit over K’tok, the uBakai had declared T’tokl-Heem an open city and instructed the civilian municipal authorities to cooperate with the Coalition military government. Peace talks had restarted.
Troops and equipment had been pouring down the needle and had also landed by one-way shuttle gliders. What had been a desperate bridgehead held by a single understrength brigade was now a bustling military headquarters and logistical complex. In addition to fresh ground troops, crews of the other destroyers of DesRon Two, as well as rescued crews of the destroyed warships and auxiliaries, were getting their shot at convalescence liberty as well.
The next capsule down, due in five minutes, included one of the last contingents of naval liberty personnel, many of them just released from hospital. Cassandra Atwater-Jones would be in that capsule. Sam knew this because he had bribed a newly arrived and souvenir-hungry yeoman at the downstation transit office with a small piece of debris from the uKa-Maat salvo cruiser destroyed in the Third Battle of K’Tok, the first spacecraft ever destroyed by a US Navy vessel in wartime.
Actually, it was part of a plasma flux regulator from Puebla, mangled by uBakai buckshot much earlier, but who could tell?
Sam wasn’t sure if he owed Cassandra an apology or the other way around, but he knew he owed her a thank you. He hoped the liter of scotch he’d paid a small fortune for, in cash as well as additional souvenirs, would do, at least as a down
payment. He didn’t know what he could do to patch things up between her and her former boss on Earth, though.
For that matter, he wasn’t even sure why he was here. What did he expect from this encounter? As carefully as he searched his mind, though, he could not find any clearly-defined expectation, only an ill-defined feeling of anticipation.
He rose when the warning gong announced the car’s arrival. He waited to the side by the offloading gate and felt an odd flush when he saw her in the crowd. He realized he had never seen her “in the flesh” before, never seen her as anything but a hologram. He’d thought of her as tall but was still surprised to see her head came up level with his. She wore a dark blue Royal Navy shipsuit, but not the custom-tailored one he had seen earlier. This one looked a size too large—probably what they had on the fleet auxiliary where she’d gotten her medical care. She carried a black musette bag over one shoulder but otherwise was unencumbered.
“Commander,” he called out.
Several officers turned but Cassandra saw him, her eyes opened wide in surprise for a moment, and then she smiled—a little sheepishly, he thought—and waved. Limping slightly, she walked over to him,
“Ah, Bitka. How unexpected. I’m a bit startled you’re even speaking to me after our last conversation. Well, you’re not in irons, I see.”
“Thanks to you, no,” Sam said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face.”
He realized he wasn’t sure what to call her: Commander? Aye-Jay? Cassandra? He mentally shrugged and held out his hand. She hesitated, surprised at the gesture, he thought, but shook his hand, tentatively and then warmly.
He handed her the box.
“Welcome to K’tok.”
Chain of Command Page 38